The stove and the outhouse

In last week's article I told the story of how my grandparents and their best friends took me and their friends grandson on a marvelous fishing vacation to Minnesota. This is the second part of that story.

By Sunday afternoon, Iowa was left behind. We now entered the lake area of Minnesota. The scenery changed from the rolling hills of Iowa, and the land became much flatter. The single most noticeable and unusual sight for me were the trees.

There were small ponds and grass areas, but the trees were everywhere. One tree in particular has remained in my mind to this day. The "White Birch" of the northern woods, was like nothing I had ever seen before.

There were thousands upon thousands of these birch trees. They were tall and grew close together. Many of them were not straight. They would seem to curve or lean differently from their neighbors, but the most distinctive thing to my eye was their color and texture.

Their bark was this most amazing white color. It seemed almost as if someone had taken sheets or shingles of white bark, and wrapped them horizontally row after row from the bottom to the top of the tree. That bark was fascinating to a young Missouri boy, who only knew the hardwood variety of trees from Vernon County.

Somewhere along the highway we passed a large Army camp. I don't remember the name, but my grandparents told me that was where the local Missouri National Guard from Nevada always went for their summer camp. We had a special interest in that group, because my great-uncle, Colonel Dillard Zimmerman, was the commandant of the local guard.

By late afternoon, we finally reached our destination. The lane that we followed from the town of Hackensack was like something out of a travel magazine. Narrow and winding with dense forest on each side it made you feel like you were passing through a tunnel.

At last we broke into a clearing, and there was the lake and the cabins. The surface of the lake had a color much like what one sees at Stockton Lake today. It was not blue or green, but more like a dark gray charcoal. To me it looked really big.

The cabins themselves were quaint by today's standards. They had white siding and wood shingle roofs. Upon entering our cabin, my first impression was that of the wood walls. These walls were built from all natural wood panels, not some factory panel. They had a natural stain, and one could even see a knot every so often.

In my memory, I can only remember three rooms in the cabin. In the first large room, one found a small sitting area, and a kitchen. the other two rooms were bedrooms. They had a wall between them, but no doors. Instead there were curtains that a person had to slide closed on a pole at the entrance to each room, much like a shower curtain.

I looked around for the bathroom, but there was none. As I looked to the adults for some clarification of the bathroom issue, I noticed they were all grinning and trying to suppress outright laughter.

My Grandmother then took me to the door and pointed to a small white structure about 50 feet from the cabin. "That is our outhouse," she related. She went on to tell me that the rule for the week was simple. "Count noses before you go out there!"

That phrase became common for all of us over the next week. Each time before you used the outdoor privy, you looked around to see who was there. Then you would say, "I've counted noses," before proceeding. A couple of Nevada boys who had grown up with indoor plumbing found it to be just another part of the great adventure. I doubt if I would enjoy it so much today.

In the middle of the front room between the sitting area and the kitchen table, was a heavy metal wood stove. This appliance from the past would present another interesting tidbit of our long ago trip.

Not long after unpacking, our grandmothers told us we needed to go out to the wood pile for some wood and kindling for the stove. Having never seen or used a wood stove in our lives, we were happy to oblige.

On our return, laden with arms full of wood, we decided to help our grandmothers. Ron and I opened the door of what we assumed to be the place for the wood. We then began to insert some of the kindling so a fire could be started.

The next sound we heard was our grandmother's laughter. As young greenhorn campers raised with gas stoves only at home, we had no idea what we had done. With smiles and more laughter, they told us that we had put the wood in the oven. They then showed us where the firebox was located. For years after, my grandmother loved to tell that story.

The food that they cooked over the next week was miraculous. Our Grandmothers were already known to us as good cooks, but this wood stove seemed to make everything taste oh so much better.

Is there anything that smells better than breakfast of bacon and eggs with homemade biscuits from a wood stove? Even though I was too young for coffee, the aroma of fresh coffee on top of that store was amazing. Well I guess there is if you remember that we had pan fried fresh fish at the main evening meal each night.

Once again, I have found that there is not enough room to finish. There is so much more to the adventure of that trip with our wonderful Grandparents. There is the fishing, the stepping over the Mississippi, the chipmunks, and that wonderful statue in Bemidji, Minnesota of Paul Bunyan. See you next week for the third installment.